Man s hoard of nearly 5,000 guns shows ease of amassing arms in U.S.

As sheriff s investigators threaded past the battered cars, cast-off tires and rus
ted farm equipment cluttering Brent Nicholson s front yard, there was no hint of t
he sinister stockpile hidden behind his windowless front door.
Inside, the guns were everywhere: rifles and shotguns piled in the living room,
halls and bedrooms; handguns littering tables and countertops. Outside, when the
y rolled up the door on the pre-fab metal garage, more arms spilled out at their
feet.
This has completely changed our definition of an ass-load of guns, said Chesterfie
ld County Sheriff Jay Brooks. Six weeks after the discovery, officers are still
cataloging the weapons, many of which have proved stolen, and the final tally is
expected to be close to 5,000. I don t know if there s ever been (a seizure) this bi
g anywhere before, Brooks says.
The question of how one man amassed such a stockpile of guns arises just as ther
e is renewed American soul-searching over the widespread availability of firearm
s in the wake of a series of mass shootings.
Even in a country where more people own more guns than anywhere else in the worl
d, Nicholson's cache is extraordinary. The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Fire
arms and Explosives doesn't rank gun seizures by size, but a spokesman says Nich
olson's hoard probably is among the largest ever.
Yet when and why Nicholson set out to amass such an arsenal remains a mystery. I
nvestigators are trying to determine whether he was simply a gun-obsessed hoarde
r or a supply valve in the Iron Pipeline of illegal firearms flowing from the sout
h to New Jersey, New York and other northern states.
Nicholson, jailed on multiple charges of possessing stolen property, has not ent
ered a plea or retained an attorney, court records show. His wife, Sharon Nichol
son, facing similar charges and free on bond, declined to discuss specifics of t
he case but stressed in a brief interview that her husband buys his guns legally
.
The Nicholson case raises issues that are fueling an increasingly heated nationa
l dialogue on the modern-day implications of Americans constitutional right to be
ar arms, which puts no limits on the number of weapons citizens can own. The unc
ertainty over how he got his guns and what he was doing with them
underscores di
sputes over private gun sales, gun registration and what the government should k
now about who owns firearms and how they change hands.
Now, the spate of mass shootings, capped by Wednesday's spree by a heavily armed
couple who killed 14 at an office holiday party in San Bernardino, California,
has pushed those issues to the fore in the presidential campaign. The massacre,
which follows an attack that killed three last Friday at a Colorado Planned Pare
nthood clinic and an Oct. 1 rampage by a gunman who killed 10 at an Oregon colle
ge, prompted Hillary Clinton, leading candidate for the Democratic nomination, t
o renew her call to "stop gun violence now" with new firearm purchase restrictio
ns. Conversely, those who top the polls for the Republican nomination, Donald Tr
ump and Ben Carson, insist the answer to gun violence is to empower citizens to
thwart such attacks by making it easier, not harder, to buy and carry weapons.
It wasn t hard for Nicholson.
A FAMILY TRADITION
Just about everyone knows the Nicholsons in this struggling town of 2,700, where

the textile industry s regional decline has helped strand median household income
at $26,500 a year, half the U.S. average, and burglary rates run well over nati
onal norms. Firearms are a cultural staple
hunting clubs and cabins dot the coun
ty and people say Nicholson s penchant for guns was a family affair.
Everybody knew he d buy guns; his father bought em, his grandfather bought em, says Al
Padgett, 68, who keeps a booth at a local flea market and says he s known the fam
ily all his life. He collected em, hoarded em, but I never knew him to sell a gun.
Not one. He did everyone a favor keeping em off the street.
Brooks sees things differently. Nicholson had piles of allegedly stolen goods, i
ncluding a zoo s worth of taxidermy trophies, Brooks says, but his preference was
guns and he provided a ready market for burglars who grabbed them from cabins an
d hunting camps. The sheriff still hasn t determined precisely how many guns in Ni
cholson s cache were stolen, noting that hundreds have had their serial numbers re
moved so they can t be traced.
Getting him locked up dries up the outlet for this stolen merchandise,
.

Brooks says

Brooks suspects Nicholson may have been selling some of the guns. He had relativ
ely few handguns maybe a half-dozen large buckets full
and that makes us believe
he had a market for those and was moving them north, Brooks says, noting that the
matter remains under investigation.
South Carolina is a common starting point for firearms moving up the Iron Pipeli
ne, a route for many of the 230,000 or so guns stolen nationwide each year. The
South has more gun thefts than any other region, federal data show, and police i
n New York and other northern cities say they regularly tie those guns to crimes
, though there is no data on how often.
Stemming the flow is a challenge, law enforcement officials say, because it s not
organized groups moving truckloads of weapons; it s a loose web of individuals who
sell guns more as an occasional sideline than a full-time endeavor.
A SHADOWY PATH
On Oct. 21, a sheriff s deputy just over the state line in Union County, North Car
olina, pulled Nicholson over for running a stop sign. Nicholson s pick-up had bogu
s license plates and the deputy noticed rifle barrels poking up from behind the
seat when he approached the vehicle.
A search turned up 20 rifles, nine handguns and nearly 200 hydrocodone pills, ar
rest records show, and several of the guns were stolen. Nicholson was arrested f
or possessing stolen weapons, trafficking in opiates and vehicular violations.
Nicholson was still jailed 48 hours later when a deputy in Pageland stopped by h
is house with a subpoena in a family court matter. The deputy spotted equipment
in the yard that had been reported stolen, and investigators returned with a sea
rch warrant. They d spend the next six days removing guns, hundreds of cases of am
mo, and other goods.
He was going up to Union County to do something with those guns; we don t know what
, Brooks says. We ve got information that he was moving some of these goods and
we re
looking at his activities to see if he was part of something more organized.
Tracking Nicholson s guns is a challenge because many states, including South Caro
lina, don t regulate private gun purchases, which are unrestricted and require no
background check. So person-to-person sales, including gun show transactions tha
t don t involve licensed dealers, are largely untraceable.

There also is no national gun registration mandate

only some state laws. So, unl
ike, say, cars, which can be tracked through registrations, guns often have no t
raceable ownership trail beyond their last sale by a licensed dealer.
It's an issue that also is complicating efforts to trace the origin of the two a
ssault-style rifles and two handguns used in Wednesday's shooting spree in San B
ernardino. The guns initially were bought legally: two by someone "associated wi
th" the case and two by someone with no apparent link, according to ATF spokeswo
man Meredith Davis. But it's still not clear how those guns got to the shooters.
President Barack Obama and the major Democratic presidential candidates support
background checks for private firearms sales; Leading Republican candidates gene
rally oppose additional gun controls, echoing the National Rifle Association s pos
ition that they re unnecessary constraints on gun owners 2nd Amendment right to bea
r arms.
None of the proposals being floated on either side of the political spectrum wou
ld limit the number of guns someone can own.
A HUNT FOR OWNERS
So far, investigators have identified owners of just a fraction of Nicholson s gun
s. Even those that still have serial numbers can be traced only to the last time
they passed through a licensed dealer. And since there s no requirement that gun
owners record those numbers, many who believe their guns were stolen and sold to
Nicholson are unable to prove the weapons belong to them.
Sharon Nicholson, 52, said in a brief interview at the family s liquor store that
her husband typically bought his guns at stores, but Brooks says investigators h
ave found no records of any purchases he may have made from licensed dealers.
Ultimately, the courts will decide what happens to Nicholson s guns. Brooks suspec
ts many will be destroyed, particularly those with no serial numbers, because th
eir rightful owners can t be identified.
Some locals scratch their heads over that possibility, arguing that it s a waste o
f good weaponry. Nicholson may not have known if he was buying weapons that prov
e to be stolen, some say, and he should be allowed to keep any that do not.
It doesn t make sense, says Otis Burch, 85, another local who knows the Nicholsons.
e s a good man
he wasn t selling those guns.
I asked him just about a month ago if he d sell me a deer rifle,
aid he didn t have any.

Burch adds,

Read more at Reutershttp://www.reuters.com/article/2015/12/03/us-usa-guns-stockp

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